Rocky Raccoon

The song "Rocky Raccoon", by the Beatles, portrays the wild west as violent place where you can do what you want without having to worry about the laws. After Rock'y girlfriend leaves him he goes to town with the plan "to shoot... the legs of his rival" because he is angry. Later on in the song it talks about how Rocky storms into a saloon with the intention of killing Dan, the man who ran away with Rocky's girlfriend. In my opinion this makes the west seem like a lawless place because in modern day society police can usually intervene and keep everyone safe. At the end of the fight Rocky ends up getting shot and then proceeds to die at the end of the song which clearly portrays the west as a violent place. When I first read the lyrics of "Rocky Raccoon" I thought that it was accurate but only to a certain degree. It was accurate because it showed the lawlessness of the west. We learned in class that the west was formed by miners who traveled west to mine and needed a place to stay, so they set up towns. The majority of these towns did not have any law enforcement which allowed people to do as they please and not get in trouble, just like Rocky did in the song. What I found to be least accurate was the depiction of violence. I do believe there was violence in the west,  but not as much as was described in "Rocky Raccoon". Over all the Beatles wrote a partially accurate song that portrayed the west as a violent and lawless place.